An independent review found that she was one of three officials who in 2011 backed the suppression of an internal report into CQC's failure to spot the scandal. But Finney told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There was not a decision at that meeting to delete a report nor was there an instruction."

She added: "At that meeting we reviewed the report, and the report concluded that the activity that CQC had undertaken at Morecambe Bay was satisfactory. It was quite clear on reading the report that the activity was not satisfactory and CQC should have done more, so at that meeting we agreed that the report required much further work."

Defending her position, Finney said the report was "the first thing" she pointed out to Grant Thornton when the accountancy and City consultants firm was brought in to conduct the external review, and she had urged the reviewers to read it.

She complained that she had been subjected to a "media feeding frenzy" without any notice. "If CQC felt that they wanted to produce a report where they named and shamed individuals in the public domain then they should have made sure that they followed a fair process," she said.

"They did not follow a fair process. We made several representations to Grant Thornton about the accuracy of the way in which they were recording the information and the way in which they were beginning to treat one allegation as [an] act. Grant Thornton did not reply and did not change the way in which the allegations were presented."

Finney added: "At that meeting I did no such thing and as a result of the way in which they redacted the names, what they generated was a complete media feeding frenzy. The first time I saw the final report was when I read it online on Tuesday night and by Wednesday morning the media feeding frenzy had begun."

The CQC's head of regulatory risk and quality, Louise Dineley, who wrote the internal review, claims that she confronted senior management with her critical findings but that Finney ordered it to be deleted.

Cynthia Bower, then CQC chief executive, and media manager Anna Jefferson also deny any attempted cover-up at the meeting.

Finney suggested that a lack of sufficient resources meant it was "always going to be a very, very tall order" for the CQC to do its job effectively.

"The fact that the regulatory activity in Morecambe Bay could have been better was undoubtedly a feature of the very, very sizeable agenda CQC had to lead."

Ministers had been warned it would be "challenging" when the body was set up, she said, adding that the new management "has received substantially more funding".

Finney said: "It is able to employ more professional staff then we were able to do and to recruit people who are of a higher level of seniority."